Colonial Regions and Motivations
This country(s) set up colonies along the current day American East Coast. Many colonies were founded to gain religious freedom, and make money off of cash crops.
Great Britain
Soldier, explorer, and leader who played a pivotal role in the establishment and survival of the Jamestown colony in Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America. His decisive leadership, ability to feed the colonists through strict labor policies, and his detailed maps and writings about the New World were crucial to the colony's early success. Pochahontas famously saved his life, recreated in the 1995 Disney film.
John Smith
The first elected representative legislative assembly in colonial America, serving as Virginia's lawmaking body from 1619 to 1776. Established by Governor George Yeardley, it allowed colonists to elect representatives, known as burgesses, to create laws, and it became a significant foundation for American democracy
The Virginia House of Burgesses
A European intellectual and cultural movement that flourished in the late 17th and 18th centuries, emphasizing reason, individualism, and natural rights. The movement would make its way to the New World in the 18th century.
The Enlightenment
A system where a human being is considered the legal personal property of another person, much like livestock or furniture, who can be bought, sold, traded, or inherited.
Chattel Slavery
This country established colonies in locations like Florida, South America, and the SW US (Texas, California). They were motivated by the 3 G's.
Spain
Without the help of this english speaking native, the Pilgrims would most likely not have survived their first winter in the New World.
Squanto (Tisquantum)
A 1620 agreement by the adult male passengers aboard the Mayflower to establish a self-governing civil body in the New World. Signed on November 11, 1620, while the ship was at Cape Cod, the Compact aimed to create laws and officers for the general good of the new colony, with signers promising submission and obedience. It is one of America's first forms of Government.
The Mayflower Compact
A series of religious revivals in American and British history from the 1730s-1740s. These movements involved fervent evangelical preachers like George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards, who emphasized personal faith, emotional conversion experiences, and a "new birth" of salvation, leading to increased religious diversity, the founding of new denominations and educational institutions, and fostering a sense of shared American Identity.
The (First) Great Awakening
This violent slave revolt in South Carolina was a specific example of overt revolt from the African Slaves. It was the largest slave uprising in the British colonies, leading to fear among white colonists and the subsequent passage of stricter slave codes in South Carolina to control the enslaved population.
Stono's Rebellion
This country established Colonies along the Mississippi River and Canada. They looked to establish trading networks with the Natives and trap furs.
French
In 1637, this pregnant Puritan woman was placed on trial for challenging the ideas of her church. This included talking to God, holding Bible meetings in her home, and questioning sermons given at church.
Anne Hutchinson
An English parliamentary act designed to bolster the nation's economy and naval power by restricting trade to English ships and eliminating foreign competition, particularly from the Dutch. It was not followed closely/enforced until after the French and Indian War
Navigation Act
A faction of Protestants (Methodists, Congregationalists, and Baptists) who favored emotional religious experiences and personal conversion over traditional religious authority, as opposed to the Old Lights who were more traditional.
The New Lights
A system of slavery in which someone sold years of their life for free passage to the new world. Following Bacon's Rebellion (1676–1677), the colonists would stop using this style of slavery, and completely turn to African Slavery.
Indentured Servitude
A Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. In theory, the conquerors provided the labourers with benefits, including military protection and education.
Encomienda System
“[God’s] wrath towards you burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire . . . you are ten thousand times more abominable in His eyes, as the most hateful and venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended Him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince. And yet, it is nothing but His hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment.”
The quote above is an example of the rhetoric from the
The Great Awakening
An unofficial British policy from the late 17th to the mid-18th century that involved a lax enforcement of laws in the American colonies to promote colonial prosperity and loyalty.
Salutary Neglect
A title held by the Calvert family who founded the Maryland colony in North America, most notably George Calvert (the first) and his son Cecil Calvert (the second). The first ________, George, planned for the Maryland colony but died before it was chartered; his son Cecil received the charter and is considered the founder of Maryland. The colony was extremely tolerant, even passing the Act of Toleration.
Lord Baltimore
The harrowing sea journey that enslaved Africans endured as part of the transatlantic slave trade, transporting them from Africa to the Americas. This journey, the middle leg of the triangular trade route, involved enslaved people being packed in brutal, squalid conditions, leading to high mortality rates from disease, starvation, and violence. Appx. 500,000 potential slaves would die or commit suicide during this passage.
The Middle Passage
The economic theory that trade generates wealth and is stimulated by the accumulation of profitable balances, which a government should encourage by means of protectionism.
Mercantilism
a 17th-century English theologian and minister who founded the Colony of Rhode Island and advocated for religious liberty and the separation of church and state. Banished from colonial Massachusetts for his radical views, he established Providence, a settlement based on principles of religious tolerance and democratic governance, which eventually became the state of Rhode Island.
Roger Williams
A compromise by 17th-century New England Puritan churches, adopted in 1662, that allowed children of baptized members who had not had a personal conversion experience to become "halfway" church members, enabling them to have their own children baptized. This change granted partial membership rights and church privileges but barred these members from full Communion or voting in church matters, bridging a gap between the original Puritan founders and their less-converted descendants.
The Halfway Covenant
A group of tolerant Christians led by men like William Penn. They were pacifists (against violence), tolerant, and held peaceful relations with the Native Americans. Many ended up in current day Pennsylvania.
Quakers
A system of laws regulating enslaved people and slavery, were enacted in the North American colonies and U.S. states roughly from the 1640s to the 1860s, with each state developing its own code to define enslaved individuals as property and restrict their rights.
Slave Codes